It's widely anticipated that there will be a riot tonight if the Ferguson grand jury does not indict Darren Wilson.
There is one question about this I haven't heard asked a single time: Who will be rioting?
The reason I haven't heard it is that it's Politically Very Incorrect to ask. That's because the answer is unappetizing. The rioters will be black.
If, contrary to expectations, there is an indictment, does anyone think whites will be taking to the streets and smashing shop windows? No. The Unmentionable Fact is that the media uniformly, and correctly, assume there will be a riot only if the grand jury does not indict, and that blacks will be doing it.
Eric Holder once and famously said that the American people are a bunch of cowards for refusing to discuss race. The unasked question about Ferguson has proved him right, albeit not in the way he expected.
To be clear: It makes no difference to me what the race of the rioters is, since race is morally irrelevant. If, unexpectedly, whites take to the streets for whatever reason, they should be dealt with in exactly the same way the authorities are apparently preparing to use now. Specifically, the rioters should be stopped by the police, using force to the extent necessary, arrested, and given due process of law. Black, white, brown or anything else. It makes no difference. Settle your grievances without violence or face the consequences.
One more thing. If Officer Wilson is indicted, it will be time for conservatives to bear in mind what they remember in the great run of criminal cases. Justice Frankfurter put it well many years ago in the Cobbledick opinion: "Bearing the discomfiture and cost of a prosecution for crime even by an innocent person is one of the painful obligations of citizenship."
If Wilson is indicted, I hope no plea bargain will be offered or solicited. If the government thinks it can make its case, the answer is easy: Go to trial and prove it. If Wilson thinks he has a valid defense, same deal.
As ever, the defendant has the structural advantage. The government gets a conviction only if it gets all twelve; the defendant frustrates a conviction if he leaves a reasonable doubt, even if only with one.
There is only one thing I'm rooting for here -- that the truth about the encounter between Wilson and Michael Brown wins, unaffected by ideology. It's not about a cause. It's about a case. Keeping the two separate is indispensable to justice.
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